Black Rose
by AngelLija
Summary: LuSam. My dream storyline for Lucky and Sam. Sam's life is turned upside down and Lucky might be the only one to save her.
1. Prologue: White and Black

This is my dream storyline for LuSam. I wish something like this would happen on the show, but since it's unlikely (unless the GH writers read this and uses it on the show, and what are the chances of that happening?) The prologue is pretty boring but it's only an introduction to the JaSam relationship and how it ends, Chapter 1 is where the story will begin. Have fun reading and let me know what you all think.

Oh, and the disclaimer: I don't own these characters, or at least most of them.

**Black Rose**

**Prologue**

They say that to dream of a black rose foretells of an unexpected death. Now that death had occurred.

Back in history, when witches roamed the earth, and magic was a believed in art, when people feared what they couldn't understand and called it magic, witches believed in the power of dreams. They said that dreams foretold of the future. Witches were burned at the stake for practicing magic, real or imaginary. They were destroyed, and throughout ages, magic became nothing more then a fairy tale. Throughout ages, science explained why certain herbs healed, and they explained that no magic was involved. Over the years, science also explained why certain dreams came true for the dreamer. It wasn't that the dreamer had magical powers and was therefor called a witch. It was because circumstances in the dreamers life mirrored their fears, preventing them from fully noticing what was right in front of them, and therefor the mind informed them of it in a different way, a way they couldn't overlook or avoid.

Samantha McCall didn't know of any of this when she first had that dream, but now she understood how her mind was only trying to tell her, to warn her, of the death she should have seen a while ago.

The first time she had that dream was two months ago. In that dream, Jason Morgan, her boyfriend of two and a half years, came to her with a dozen roses. All red except one. One was black, as black as the eye of the storm. That night, she had woken up almost screaming. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew that dreaming of a black rose meant dreaming of death. She had cried to Jason about her fears and he had held her close to him, softly whispering "Don't worry. It's only a dream. I'm not going to die."

She believed him that time. But it was the last time that she believed him.

The next time she had that dream, it was that Jason had given her a romantic dinner, full of candle light and roses, all of them red. She had walked through a path of roses, their petals soft like silky sheets. She had walked toward him, and they grew deeper in shade as she approached the man she loved. His face was shadowed by the flicker of the candle light, and even in the distance she could see the love around him. But as she stepped closer, the roses grew deeper, into a purple now, then a dark midnight in a storm, and finally the black shade of death. And all the love around him, became the look of frozen ice and blazing hate. That night when she woke with tears burning her eyes and a scream icing out of her throat, she realized he wasn't there.

She had waited up all night, waiting for a phone call to destroy her world. She didn't know if the call would come from the hospital or the morgue, but either way she suspect that the man she loved would die soon. The call of his death didn't come, and with the light of dawn, he came home. She had been so happy to see him that she'd forgotten all about the dream. She was so happy to see him, she didn't smell the floral perfume on his shirt and a soft pink lipstick smeared barely visibly on his neck.

It was the third time that she dreamt of the black rose that the death actually occurred. That time, the dream was simple. It was daylight and Sam was walking around the penthouse, their penthouse, and she spotted the bouquet of black roses that he had given her. She had walked over to them and sniffed, feeling their soft aroma filling the air. She didn't fear the death, she welcomed it, and when she woke in the morning, she wasn't screaming or crying. With that dream, came acceptance and realization.

That day, she had woken in his arms, his warm and secure embrace, and as he stirred, Jason whispered sweet nothing's in her ear. She grimaced. She wasn't sure if he was sleeping next to her, or was he dreaming of sleeping next to another woman. She suspected the later.

That day, she realized what her dreams of the black roses really meant. He wasn't going to die, not literally. But it was the death of love those dreams foretold.

Sam had thought that she loved Jason, and for a while she really did love him. But with time, they drifted apart.

She should have realized that he was already out of love with her the moment he dumped her after she woke up after a surgery. There she was, broken, damaged, fragile, hurt, and in a desperate need of a friend. He wasn't her friend then.

While broken up from him, she had slept with another man, a married man she had hated with everything inside her. The one night stand, wasn't romantic, or planed on, or spontaneous for that matter. It was simply a drunken night of bad judgement. Her life was going down hill and fast, and one night, she drank more then her share of alcohol. That night, she slept with her worst enemy. That night, she woke up full of regret and self hate.

That same night, Jason slept with a married woman, got her pregnant, and didn't regret a damn minute of it.

Sam had forgiven him for his liaison on that tragic night. She knew they weren't lovers at the time he made love to another woman. Jason, however, never fully got over it.

At that moment, Sam should have known that Jason no longer loved her. As life went and days turned into nights and back into days, she and Jason found their way back to each other. She though that it will last for good. But it died.

Now as she looked at the penthouse, that had been her home for years, for the last time, Sam understood that once love died, there was no chance of resurrecting it. You can't take a dead rose and make it bloom again, and like a rose in a vase, their love was temporary and came to an end.

Jason hadn't been as ready to accept the truth as she had been, and so she had to convince him that their relationship had to end. But now, as he walked her to the door the last time, they whispered their good byes.

Many times in their relationship, Sam had done this before. Packed her bags, walked to the door as he fallowed her, and walked out expecting never to return but she always did. All of those times, Jason had presented her with a gift of money. This time was on different on that account.

"Take it," Jason said, pushing the envelope toward her.

But unlike the previous times when she was tempted to take it, this time she was repulsed.

"When have I ever taken your pity money?"

"View it as a gift."

Looking straight at him, she said, "When have I ever taken your money?"

He was silent.

"That's what I though." Turning to leave, she glanced back at him and whispered. "Goodbye, Jason."

In deed it was a death. There was no fight, no tears, no begging, no emotions or feelings or thoughts. It was a death, a cold, silent, dark death where they simply grew apart.

But out of the death came a life. The first night Sam moved into her own little apartment, she dreamed that she was laying on a bad of black rose petals. The bed was outside and the wind was harsh in the night sky, and then the sun came and it's warmth cascaded over her. The winds died down, and the black rose petals turned to a brilliant white. Innocence.

That morning when she woke up, she realized she was free. She had the freedom she had always craved.

Little did she know that danger was lurking in the shadows. Little did she know that she wasn't free at all, but rather she was a prisoner in the game of danger, and the stakes in the game have just gone up.


	2. Chapter 1: She is Found

**Part 1**

**Finding Me**

**- - - + - - -**

**Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. **Henry David Thoreau

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"Lucky." Hearing his name, he turned behind and faced the other detective. "Get to the fax." Detective Cruz Rodriguez covered the mouth piece of the phone with his palm and continued in a confidential tone. "I'm talking to Kauai PD right now, there's been a sighting."

Excitement roared through him as he rushed to the fax and collected the sheet of paper. It was taken from a surveillance camera in a convenience store across of a small hotel in Kauai, Hawaii.

As he looked at the features of the woman in the picture, disappointment took over him. He didn't need to say anything to Cruz, for the detective understood by the sadness in his eyes that they couldn't identify this woman for the one they were searching for.

"It's not her," Cruz said into the phone. "And you're sure it's the woman from the airport?" He waited a beat before continuing. "Thank you for your help, Officer Ikana. I really appreciate it."

After Cruz replaced the phone back onto his desk, Lucky handed him the sheet. "She's so similar, but the hair is longer, the face more triangular, and the eyes are haunted."

Cruz nodded in agreement. "Hawaii was the only lead we had. What do we do now?"

He walked the short distance back to his desk and crossed his arms as he leaned against the metal desk the department had assigned to him. It was plain, with no computer or stacks of paper. The Port Charles Police Department, one of the worst rated police departments in the country, was so below the budget that there were only three computers in the whole police station, and those were old and barely ever worked. The only thing on his desk at the moment was a black phone which sometimes went dead for no apparent reason. It was old too, and close to being dead for good.

"We start from scratch again. Search her apartment, check with the people around her, her neighbors."

"And it will always be the same story." Cruz sat down on top of his own desk which was placed right behind Lucky's. "Her neighbors saw her leave. She got a post office box for all her mail while she's away. And she neglected to inform anyone as to her whereabouts." He paused and as he cleared his throat, his voice took on a serious note that drew Lucky's complete attention to Cruz. "What if we're looking at the wrong thing? What if she didn't leave town? What if she was kidnaped?"

Lucky's jaw became hard, his eyes cold and distant, and his face unreadable. "I considered it."

"And?"

"And. . . If she was kidnaped, why isn't the kidnaper asking for a ransom. Jason and Sonny are willing to pay any amount of money for any information as to her whereabouts."

Cruz was silent a moment, deep inside his thoughts. "What if it's one of Sonny's enemies?"

"I though that at first," Lucky confessed. "But then one thing occurred to me. If that were the case, why would Sam be kidnaped a week _after _she left Jason for good? Wouldn't Jason's enemies want to harm his current girlfriend instead of his ex?"

"He doesn't have a current girlfriend."

"There must be some woman around town that Jason is overly friendly with. He's not exactly the type who stays single for long. Besides, I think Carly has much more chance of being kidnaped then Sam. She's Sonny's wife, the wife of a mob boss. Jason's only a hitman. If someone were to destroy the organization, they would go after the boss first."

Cruz nodded. "You have a point." He stood from his desk and rubbed his face and his tired eyes. He'd been working for more then thirteen hours straight without any coffee in his system. Cruz loved his coffee and he craved it now. "So lets look at all the evidence again."

Lucky recounted the facts. "Sam left Jason. She got herself an apartment, and one week later she left. All evidence points to her packing her bags and leaving town. She left no note, and told no one about it."

"I wish that plane to Hawaii would have worked out," Cruz commented.

"Me, too."

Lucky thought of how he felt when he heard that a woman matching Sam's description had been seen boarding a plane to Hawaii. Though the flight was from California to Hawaii, it was possible for Sam to have driven to California. The night Sam disappeared, Jason and Sonny paid big money to have all flights monitored. There have been many sightings of Sam lookalikes boarding different flights and none panned out. This one was just the same as all the others. So far, Sam's car hadn't been recovered, and though there was an APB out for it, no one had spotted it yet. Sam had simply disappeared.

Lucky stared out ahead, deep in thought. He watched the officers and detectives, civilians and reporters, rich and poor, all walking around the police building for one reason or another. The area where he stood was restricted and only people with a pass could get through. He saw the clerk sitting at her desk giving passes to people who requested to see a particular officer, or people who were called in for an interview or an interrogation. He watched as Jason Morgan, and Sonny and Carly Corrinthos all came into view and approached the clerk.

Lucky's hands turned into fists. "What are they doing here?"

"Maybe they heard about the Hawaii angle," Cruz said.

Instinctively, Lucky picked up his phone and a manual screw driver from his desk drawer.

"Don't bother, you're phone hasn't been tapped," Sonny said as he walked over to them. "What's new?"

"You tell me," Lucky said as he ignored Sonny's first statement and opened up the phone to check for any listening devices that weren't supposed to be there. He found none.

"Anything new about Sam?" Jason asked.

"No. There was a lookalike incident, but it wasn't her," Cruz supplied.

"So why did you call us over?" Carly asked while running a hand through her blonde hair.

Lucky was confused. "We didn't."

"Someone did," Sonny said in a matter of fact tone. "The clerk called and told us to come, that there's new information about Sam. I thought since you two are working so hard on earning that reward, I figured you two have found something."

Lucky resented that but didn't show it. It was so like Sonny to assume that cops only worked for the money, or that he only wanted to find Sam because of that reward that Jason was offering. And though the money was a sweet deal, he would easily walk away from it. Truth was, he wanted to find Sam because she was his friend, his only friend.

At one point in his life, when Lucky's whole world had fallen apart, Sam was his only release, his only light inside the darkness. He had messed up, he had cheated on his wife and developed a drug addiction. Everyone turned away from him. He'd lost his job, his wife, his adoptive child, even his family seemed to be too busy to care about him. And when he checked into rehab mainly for his wife, Liz didn't even bother to visit him. She only called him a few times and that was always for less then five minutes. It was Sam who had come for the longest visit, and it was Sam who had called to check on him every night, and talked him through his pain. They had agreed to keep those phone calls a secret. With that, a friendship was born, and he wasn't ready to loose this friend. No one knew about those phone calls, and he saw no reason to reveal about them now.

"So who called?" Carly asked them all in general.

"Glad you could make it," a voice came from behind Lucky and he turned to face the speaker though he had recognized the voice as Ric Lancing, the most corrupt DA Port Charles has ever seen.

"What's the news about Sam?" Jason asked and though he kept his face as a mask of calm and cold control, there was worry in his eyes and temper in his voice.

"I think you'd better sit down."

Jason ignored that question but Carly sucked in a quick breath and sat quickly. "It's that bad?"

Ric kept his face calm and cold, which should have been easy for him since he was known for hating Sam. But even his voice shook slightly as he reported the information. "I'm sorry. I few carpenters were building a new strip mall on the outskirts of town, they found a woman matching her description. I have no information as of right now except that she's in the morgue. She had no ID, but Sam's known for not carrying her stuff with her half the time. From the looks of it, the woman was murdered while out jogging. They need a positive identification." Ric paused and the room was silent. Though the mouths of the people around them seemed to be moving, no words reached them. Then Ric spoke again, directing his question to Jason and only Jason, "If it's too hard for you to see her, I could go identify her."

Jason was only silent for a second. "No, I need to see her for myself."

Lucky wanted to go there too. He wanted to see her body laying on that cold metal, and he wanted to find the killer who did this. He wanted to kill the killer, as un-rational as that sounded. But it wasn't his place to interfere and so he stood back and tried to detach himself from the investigation that awaited him. He didn't know why the rage took over him and he wanted to destroy the killer, but he suspected that it wasn't mare friendship that he lost.

-------------------------------------------------------

He turned off the ignition and the car died down. The soft blues from his radio evaporated into the silence, and only the light traffic on the street penetrated the tinted windows, the soft buzz of tires on asphalt. For a moment, Jason Morgan just sat there and stared at the small building, imagining all the bodies stacked away into little freezers, while some laid on cold metal tables, naked and cut open as a doctor tried to find the reasons for their deaths. In his line of work, he had already gotten used to the idea that one day, his body will end up in a place like that, cold and naked and dead. He felt no sympathy for his own future, he knew that all criminal's eventually ended up as victims in bloodbath's, but he did regret the ends of the innocent kind of people who found themselves in such misery and pain. A while ago, Sam wouldn't have been considered as one of the innocent, she was with him. But the woman had the guts to leave him and start over, he had wanted her to survive in her own life, and now she was a victim of that pain and misery that he so regretted.

There was no good in avoiding the obvious so with his mask of cool control, he grabbed the door handle and was about to yank it open when his cell phone chimed in. He looked at the caller ID.

"Hey."

"Lucky just called me. Are you okay?"

I wondered how much should he say to Elizabeth. Now that Sam had taken herself out of the equation, Jason didn't feel so guilty sneaking behind her back and seeing Liz on the side. He knew that Liz wasn't going to leave Lucky, but that wasn't his problem. Part of the reason he was with Liz was because of the baby she was carrying, it wasn't Lucky's.

Having obviously been puzzled by his silence, Liz added some words to the conversation so he wouldn't spontaneously hang up on her. "Lucky called to check on me, and he told me that Ric found Sam's body. It must be hard for you. . ." she paused. "You know, seeing her like that, lifeless." Liz paused again as she searched for words. "I'm worried about you. I know that Sam was an important part of your life. And I know that though you haven't really forgiven her for cheating on you, I know that deep down you still care about her somewhat."

"I care about you too," he said simply and heard the sharp intake of her breath over the phone. "I don't know if it's Sam's body or not, I haven't gone in yet. But if someone killed Sam to get to Sonny and me, I want you to be careful. And if it's Sam, we'll need to stay away from each other."

"I don't understand," she said in a soft, babying voice that was her trademark when she was sad.

"You could be in danger, I don't want anything to happen to the baby or you."

"You think Sam was murdered because of you?"

"If she was," he added that since he had no confirmatation that it was really Sam, "it could be because of me, and if you were seen with me they might come after you."

"I'll stay careful," Liz said but Jason didn't believe a single word. For a woman who was carrying a hitman's child, married to a cop, and an ex wife of the corrupt DA, Ric Lancing, Liz was very naive.

"I have to go in and see her," he said as he opened the door and got out.

"Let me know what you find out. I'm worried about you."

"I'll call you." He hung up before another word could be exchanged.

Walking to the building, he was filled with dread. When Sam disappeared, the police looked into it for one second and let it all go. He wasn't too worried about Sam's disappearance, he knew she had a life and that maybe she fled to start a new one. It was Alexis who had barded in at the dead of night wanting to find Sam. Since it was well known around town that Alexis despised her daughter ever since the Ric incident, Jason considered Alexis's sudden resolve into finding Sam as something serious and agreed to help her. He and Sonny had all the airports monitored, thanks to the money they earned during their illegal activities, but it had been a month and no solid clue as to Sam's disappearance. It was a well known fact that she liked to play games with her identities and have been known to living under false names, which made his job so much more difficult.

Jason opened the door and walked into the cold building, the smell of death and gore evident and heavy in the air.

A woman in doctor scrubs and short blonde hair came to him and smiled warmly. "Can I help you?"

"I came to identify a deceased."

She frowned. "Right this way."

As he fallowed her, he surveyed her and judged her to be too young for a job as a medical examiner. More then that, he could tell that she will never succeed in the job. She showed too much emotion for a job of this cold magnitude. Jason had succeeded in the life of killing people, but then again he wouldn't call himself as warm of loving. Simply put, he wasn't normal. It took a vary strong woman to survive a man psychologically. Sam was a strong women.

He was lead into a room with a couple of freezers and three operating tables, all of them had a body each on them but the bodies were covered in white sheets.

An elderly man of about sixty came from around a desk in the far side of the door and stood before Jason. His features were hard and mean, his face a cold mask of emptiness. This man had no heart or emotions. He would be good at dissecting people as if they were objects.

"He's here for an identification," the lady M.E. told the man.

He turned to Jason. "I'm Doctor Slith."

Jason didn't introduce himself. It wasn't a business meeting for him.

"Who did you come to identify?"

"The construction site body."

"Oh, the lady found by the carpenters?"

Jason nodded.

"I was just about to do me autopsy on her. According to the body wounds, she was beaten heavily and she was stabbed. Preliminary reports state she most likely bled to death." He waited until the lady doctor handed him a clipboard and then he flipped through some of the pages on it and looked back at Jason. "Caucasian, black hair, brown eyes, about late twenties early thirties. . ." he continued stating off the facts that matched Sam's and Jason felt his dread and anxiety building.

"Can I see her?"

The doctor stopped mid-sentence and looked up. "Certainly, right this way." He lead to one of the autopsy tables and looked at the ID tag on the big toe. It had red nailpolish on it and the ID read Jane Doe number 12. The man uncovered the face up to her shoulders and revealed the pale body of a dead woman. "Is it her?"

Jason felt his breath catch.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The cup of hot, smooth coffee cascaded down his throat as he inhaled it's aroma and gulped it's awakening taste into his mouth. His thoughts, however, weren't on the leisurely drink that he was drinking liberally. It was on the woman who had vanished. "What do you think will happen if they find Sam dead?"

Cruz raised his head from his own coffee cup and looked at Lucky for a moment before he chose his answer. "I don't know," he paused, "But I think the shit will hit the fan."

Lucky nodded. "That goes without saying. For a small and somewhat non-influential woman, Sam is important to a lot of people."

Cruz sipped his drink slowly. "I keep wondering what Alexis wanted to tell Sam when she disappeared."

"It must be something important since she almost went into a frenzy searching for Sam. And now that attorney that Alexis hired is poking around."

Cruz snapped to attention. "Really? What is she looking for now?"

"The usual," Lucky said and glanced around the Kelly's Dinner that was his relaxation spot. "She's asking everyone who had any connection to Sam as to her whereabouts. What's puzzling me is that Alexis is a very competent attorney, why would she hire someone with almost no law experience? And why is she being so shady about it?"

"It's not like we could ask her."

Silence fell upon them as it had ever since they both found out that Sam might be dead. Their conversations tended to last no longer then five minutes before they slipped into thought. Lucky's thoughts circled around pain. What kind of pain would it be for Alexis to find out that while she had fought for her youngest child, her firstborn might have been butchered? And what kind of pain it must be for Jason to be in that morgue looking at a dead woman's face and waiting for a sense of recognition to spark. Lucky had never considered himself as very fortunate, but now he was grateful for all the things he had. He had the love of a sweet woman who was expecting his child in a couple of days!

Tired of the silence, Lucky said, "Liz is starting to feel pain all over the place."

"That's expected, she might go into labor any day now," Cruz commented in a monotone.

"Oh, don't be too exited for me, It's nothing more then my first child we're talking about. Certainly nothing important," he said sarcastically.

Cruz looked up. "I'm sorry, maybe I should be a little more supportive."

"You think?" Lucky raised an eyebrow. Then he sighed and took a sip of his coffee. "Why are you so set against my relationship with Liz?"

"I'm not against it," Cruz said while avoiding Lucky's eyes.

Lucky knew it was a lie. He understood enough about body language to know that an avoided gaze was a sign of dishonesty but he didn't confront Cruz about it, though the suspicion in his mind grew. After all, Cruz was just the newest member of the newfound "Hate Club" for Lucky's relationship with the mother of his child. At first, it seemed like Lulu didn't want her brother with the pregnant woman. Then it was Liz's best friend, Emily, who on more then one occasion said that maybe they needed to take a break from each other. It was almost not surprising that Cruz jumped on that bandwagon. But why? What did they all know that Lucky didn't?

Cruz took another sip of his coffee and then drained the cup completely. "I wonder if Jason will pay the reward to Ric."

"I bet the construction workers who found the body will get something, even if it wasn't Sam's body. I doubt Jason will willingly give anything to Ric."

Cruz nodded and shook his empty cup as if willing it to full back up. "I think Jason would more likely accuse Ric of killing Sam. After all, he had motive."

"Ric had an alibi for that night."

"And we didn't even check into it because we had no evidence of foul play," Cruz explained. "But a man with the justice department, like Ric, could be able to cover any crime. It wouldn't be above him to get rid of Sam."

"And why are you so sure that Sam is dead?" A woman asked and Lucky recognized the voice instantly. He looked up to see his little sister, Lulu, standing beside him and a paper cup of coffee. Her blonde hair was parted down the middle and cascaded softly to her sides. She wore a black tank top with "Kiss My A$$" written on the front.

"Nice shirt," Lucky commented.

"I think it makes a statement, I especially like the money signs." She glanced down at her own shirt and then looked at Cruz. "I was in the kitchen chatting up some cooks, when I came out and saw you, Mike asked that I pass this along to you." She handed Cruz the cup of coffee that she was holding.

Cruz looked beyond Lulu at the diner's manager and said, "Thank you."

"It's no problem, I saw you shaking that cup," Mike said in a soothing, fatherly tone.

Lulu, obviously unhappy with the changed subject, pulled up a chair as a way of saying that she will not leave until she knew everything. She sat. "So why do you all think Sam is dead?"

"It's a police matter," Lucky said, trying to spare her of the details but he knew she was persistent.

"So. . . It's going to be a public matter soon anyways. Sam's disappearance was very high profile, the media is bound to pick up on it sooner or later."

"Then I suggest you should watch the news."

Lulu gave her brother a deadly look. "It hasn't been a wonderful day for me so stop giving me a hard time, Lucky."

That got Lucky's attention. "What happened?"

"Tell me about Sam and I'll tell you."

Lucky was silent as he considered.

"Oh, come on, Lucky," Lulu urged, "It's not like I'm some innocent five year old who doesn't understand what crime and death is. If anything, I'm wise beyond my years. Lets not forget that I was pregnant once and had an abortion. That was a very hard decision to make. Surely I can comprehend a simple police investigation."

"She's right, you know," Cruz chimed in.

Lucky sighed and turned to Lulu. "The short story only."

"Fine."

"Someone came across a corpse that fits Sam's description."

"Did anyone go to identify her?"

He nodded. "Jason."

"And it's really her?"

"I don't know," Lucky said. "Jason hasn't informed anyone yet, that I know of."

"Then maybe she's not dead. It's not exactly like Sam is one of a kind. There are lots of women who are short with black hair and brown eyes. Maybe another woman was murdered?"

"I know," Lucky said. "But it's basic police training; fear for the worst, be paranoid, and pessimistic."

"So that's how you protect yourself from getting a broken heart, by expecting the worst?"

Lucky was taken aback, "Why would I get a broken heart?"

"I'm not dumb, Lucky. I know you and Sam are friends. You two don't show it much but I did see that one moment when you bumped into her at the pier and you two talked. It's obvious you two are each other's sounding board and shoulder to cry on." She tugged at her shirt. "I hope Sam's okay."

"Me too," Lucky sighed and took a sip of his coffee. He remembered that incident of which Lulu spoke as clearly as if it would have happened yesterday. He was upset with where his life was going and went down to the pier to think, Sam was there too. They talked, describing their fears and ambitions. Lucky had explained how he feared that he might go back on drugs, but also that he couldn't separate himself from them either. And he had pulled out a bottle of drugs from his pocket to show her the reminder he had of them.

" _Not a single day goes by that I don't think of my drug addiction or that I want to take a pill." He turned the drug bottle over in his palms and traced the lid with his thumbs. _

_Sam put her hand on his upper arm and pulled him up from the bench on which they both sat. "Come on, we'll get rid of this addiction once and for all."_

"_What? How?" _

_Sam only smiled and lead him to the edge of the dock and then they stood before the open water. "Open the bottle."_

"_You want me to throw the pills out?"_

"_No, that won't accomplish anything. You could just go back and get more. Now, put all those pills in your palm."_

_He spilled them onto his large palm as she instructed. _

"_Now give me the empty bottle."_

_He did as she said._

"_Now, pick up one pill and say something bad about it."_

_He picked up a white capsule and said, "It's addictive."_

"_Now throw it out."_

_He did and watched as the pill sank and dissolved into the water._

"_Now do it again and say another negative thing."_

_He picked up another pill from his palm and said, "It makes you loose control." After throwing that pill out, he picked up another one. "It makes you aggressive." And another. "It makes your life difficult."_

_Before long, his palm was empty, and psychologically he felt clean. That night when he got home, he found Liz already asleep in their bed, but he didn't join her. Instead, he got all the drugs from all the hiding spots that he could remember and one by one he flushed them down the drain the way he did with the pills at the pier. He also started a small fire in the fireplace and burned his prescription pad which he had stolen. After that night, he had never wanted to take another drug, ever!_

He was lost in his memory for only a second, and he could already feel the gratitude and respect he had for Sam. She had really helped him. Before he could get lost in the memory and think of what would happen if he really did loose that one good friend, he turned his attention to Lulu. "Now tell me about your hard day."

"Long story short, I bumped into a person I just couldn't stand and I told her my opinion of her, and she implied that I was a heartless self destructive spoiled brat and she was a very good person. I hate how she tries to justify all her mistakes as if she made them for the good of someone else." Lulu paused. "Anyways, I just hate that person, she's a complete liar and she's willing to hurt everyone." She sighed. "Anyways, I think I'll go to Spinelli's and see if he could find the information about that dead woman and if she's Sam. After all, Jason has no reason to tell you if it's her or not." And with that, Lulu left.

"I don't know how Lulu can talk to him," Cruz remarked.

"Me neither, it's like he has his own language."

Cruz changed the subject, "So what was that incident that Lulu was talking about. You and Sam at the pier?"

"We were both dealing with bad habits we needed to walk away from at that time and we helped each other out. I had my drug addiction and Sam had her conflicting feelings for Jason. I wanted to kick the drugs for good, and she needed someone who would stand beside her when she left Jason. She needed a friend who would support her leaving him."

"Support her how?"

"She knew that if she left Jason, she would also loose Sonny, Carly, and Emily, and they were her only friends. She needed a friend with no connections to Jason and I reminded her that it was me."

"And when did she leave Jason?"

"She left him the next day." The same day that he woke up and didn't think about taking a pill.

Cruz fell into silence and took a sip of his coffee. Lucky wanted to do that too but as he looked at his coffee cup, he realized it had gotten cold.

A jingle sounded indicating that someone had opened the door and he looked up at the woman who entered the dinner. His heart froze in his chest and shock took over him. He didn't know if he was looking at a real thing or a ghost.

The woman came closer. Her dark hair was in soft full waves and it bounced with each step that she took. Her hips swayed as she walked in her blue jeans and high heals. She looked slightly tanned and happy as a clam.

"Hello, Detectives, I hear there's an APB out on me. I hope you weren't intending to arrest me," she said teasingly.

Lucky was momentarily dumbfounded and speechless. "Sam, you're alive?"

She smiled happily. "More then ever."

Lucky didn't know what happened except that he was suddenly able to smell the flowery scent of her hair, feel the soft caress of her skin, and feel her soft breath against his neck.

"I get it, you're happy to see me, but don't squeeze me to death."

Lucky let go of her. He didn't know what compelled him to hug her, but now he turned serious. "Everyone was worried about you, Sam. We even thought you were dead."

"Yeah, I know. I bumped into Lulu on the way here. She told me about the death part. But I'm okay. I just went on a little vacation."

Cruz gave Sam a little hug. "We were all vary worried about you. Something very bad happened, Sam."

Her smile was stripped off. "What happened?"

"It's Alexis. Her health took a turn for the worse and she's in a coma. The doctor's don't think she will make it," Lucky informed her.

Suddenly, Sam paled and her eyes deepened with fear. She sharply sat down.

"There was something very important that she wanted to tell you before she slipped away," Cruz said to her quietly and slowly, letting her to absorb it.

Lucky placed his hand on top of hers, lending her support. Leaning forward, he said. "I'm sorry."

She only nodded for a moment and then looked at their joined hands but her eyes were unseeing as her mind processed everything. Then she looked up at Lucky. "I don't think. . . I don't think I can d-drive." Her voice shook. "Can. . . Can you t-take me to the. . . hospital?"


	3. Chapter 2: Black Leather

As some of you may see, I absolutly love writing this story (that's why the updates are so quick and the chapters are relatively long) I hope you all enjoy reading this just as much.

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**Chapter 2**

It was strange how silence can overtake even the most talkative person. Just moments ago while in the car with Lucky Spencer, Sam had talked about her fears for her mother. She kept asking him questions, and now Sam knew quite a lot. Apparently, Alexis had felt her health take a turn for the worst even before Sam took her surprise trip to California. But when Alexis wanted to tell Sam something very important, and found that Sam was gone, her health declined so quickly that within a week she slipped into a coma.

Now she stood by the foot of her mother's hospital bed and watched the heart monitor counting off her pulse. She watched the oxygen machine give Alexis the air that she couldn't breath in herself. Sam was lost in horror as she remembered her ball-busting mother, the woman who was practically fearless, was now laying so still, with a face as white as a sheet of snow.

"Hi," she murmured with a tone just above a whisper.

Alexis didn't respond.

Her hair was gone, from the cancer obviously. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be in a deep sleep.

Sam remembered that patients in a coma were still able to think and feel emotions, that they were only gone in a physical sense. She remembered that coma patients could hear what was being said to them.

"I'm here," Sam said. "I'm here, Alexis. I'm good and I'm alive." She wondered if she sounded convincing. "When I was away on my trip, I did something very good. Something very good happened to me." She wondered if she sounded happy and exited. If coma patients could pick up on emotions they heard in someone's voice, she hoped her mother picked up on the happiness and not the panic. With a false tone of happiness, she said, "I want you to be the first to know of what happened to me. I want to tell you. When you wake up, I will. I promise."

She stepped around the bed and came to her mother's side. "I hear there's something very important that you wanted to tell me." She paused and tried to control her voice, and not to give away her real emotions. "I hope you. . ." Her voice shook tenderly and she paused again. Sam took a deep breath. "I hope you live to tell me about it." Her attempt to hide her sadness didn't work as she felt tears fill her eyes. She blinked a few times, willing the tears to go away as she breathed deeply trying to control her emotions.

Sam wanted Alexis to be surrounded by the good while she was in the coma. She assumed that if Alexis believed that Sam's life was going great, that she would wake up more easily then if she believed that everyone around her was stressed and unhappy. She didn't want Alexis to feel anything negative around her.

Did Ric visit Alexis? She wondered about that and was pretty sure that he did. But did her fill her with stress, pushing her further into her coma, or did he also fill her with a sense of happiness and security.

She wished her mother would wake up. When coming back from California, Sam was eager to develop some sort of a relationship with Alexis. Now that she had left Jason for good, Alexis would have been happy to know that. Did she know that? She wanted to tell her mother but didn't. Afraid that her voice will betray her fears and sadness. Instead, she simply watched as Alexis laid there, and finally she touched Alexis's arm. With her fingertips, she touched the back of her mother's cold hand and felt more tears well up in her eyes. She was pretty sure that the tears weren't doing Alexis any good. Afraid that her mother will pick up on those emotions through her voice, Sam forced her voice to calm down and she finally whispered. "Goodbye, Alexis."

As she walked towards the door, Sam felt like crap for calling her mother by her first name as opposed to 'Mom' or 'Mother'. But her relationship with the woman was too new, too fresh and damaged for Sam to open up to the woman who gave her life, and destroyed it. She wasn't ready to open up to the woman whom she hated and loved unconditionally.

As she walked out the door, Sam leaned against it and covered her face in her hands as she cried softly.

"Are you okay?" she heard Lucky ask her as he rubbed her arm softly.

She hated herself for falling apart like that. Clearing away her tears, Sam said, "I'm fine. I'm just not used to seeing her like this. She used to be so strong, and now she can't even open up her own eyes."

"It must be hard seeing her like that."

Sam only nodded.

Lucky placed his hand on her upper back and pushed her away from the door. "Come on, I'll take you to your place."

She didn't protest as he lead her toward his car and then drove her to her new apartment at the MetroCourt hotel. All Sam could think about was what Alexis was thinking about, what was she feeling, while in her coma. Was she at least happy in her mind? Or was it all chaos as her real life had been?

---

_She was lost. She had to be. No one had come to search for her in days and the feeling of being lost was unnerving. Alexis tried to remember the moment she ended up in that dark forest of eternal night. She remembered wanting to tell something very important to Sam. But then Sam vanished and her health went downhill and then she hired an attorney to help her in case something bad happened to her. And then. . . And then . . . She ended up in this forest. She tried to remember the path to the place but she couldn't. She just remembered talking to Ric, and then he left her in tears and in pain, and her head began to spin and she fainted. All black took over her and when she woke up, she was in this forest. How did she end up there and why couldn't she find the way out of it? _

_The woods and trees were unfamiliar and the wind was harsh and cold. But she didn't feel cold. She didn't feel anything physical. It was as if her skin had become numb and unfeeling. Like in a dream._

_Was it a dream? Was it nothing more then a terrible nightmare?_

_But if it was a nightmare, surely she would have woken up and the nightmare would have ended. She had tried to wake up but couldn't. It had to be real. It couldn't be a nightmare._

_Once, while in the forest, Ric had come to help her. He had told her that Molly was okay. So that was good. At least not everyone's life was in chaos like her own. She had tried to follow Ric out of the forest but she couldn't. The paths seemed to twist and turn and she ended up in the same spot where she had started, at the heart of the forest. _

_She had slept on the hard ground of the forest, hoping to wake up to daylight. Surely in the light she could see better and find her way out. But she woke to the darkness and day never seemed to come. _

_One night, Sonny stumbled onto the forest. He told her that Kristina was okay, and she even got to see her daughter. She asked Kristina a few questions but the girl didn't answer them but talked about something else entirely, as if she couldn't hear her mother._

_When Sonny left, Alexis tried to follow him out but couldn't. No matter how hard she tried, she wound up walking in circles over and over again. _

_The winds blew harshly and the tree limbs twisted in the wind, their branches scratching at her skin, but she couldn't feel them. The wind rattled her hair in the wind. She had hair, long hair. Was she lost in the forest for so long that her hair had time to grow back?_

_Then one day, Jason came to her in the forest. He told her about searching for Sam but being unable to find her. That was when Alexis remembered almost everything._

_She had remembered having an argument with Ric. She had told him that Sam might be hurt in a forest somewhere, attacked somewhere. She had a strong maternal instinct and knew her daughter was alive but in major physical pain. Being attacked and left for dead was the only thing that made sense to her. And Alexis was pretty sure that she was left for dead in a forest somewhere._

_Ric, however, accused Alexis of having an over developed sense of imagination and that Sam was probably sitting on a beach somewhere. He had told her he will not join in at searching the woods nearby. _

_So when Ric had left, she grabbed a flashlight and intended to go on her own when her head started to spin and she woke in the forest. _

_Jason must have been searching for Sam in the woods too. He must have come up with the same possibility as she had. _

_After Jason left, Alexis didn't bother following him, she saw the path twist as it was. But she did search the ground around her and found a flashlight she must have dropped. For days, or more like eternal nights, she walked the forest floor searching for Sam._

_She had almost given up hope of finding Sam or coming out of that forest when she heard a soft "Hi" behind her._

_Alexis turned around suddenly and shone her flashlight on the person behind her. The voice had been so distant and faraway that it didn't sound real. But there was a person whose face she couldn't see. The person had their back to Alexis and she couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman. The person wore blue jeans and a black winter jacket with a hood hiding the head. _

"_I'm here," the person said in a voice that sounded far away. And as the person turned around, Alexis gasped in shock as she looked at Sam. "I'm here, Alexis. I'm good and I'm alive."_

"_Where were you, Sam?" Alexis gasped._

"_When I was away on my trip, I did something very good. Something very good happened to me." Her smile was real and big and she looked happy._

"_What happened?" Alexis asked._

"_I want you to be the first to know of what happened to me. I want to tell you. When you wake up, I will. I promise."_

"_Wake up? I'm awake," she said in surprise. _

"_I hear there's something very important that you wanted to tell me."_

"_Yes, yes," Alexis said remembering what she wanted to tell Sam. "My health is going down hill and I need you to do me a big . . ."_

_Sam cut her off, "I hope you. . ." Sam started to cry._

"_Sam, what's wrong?"_

"_I hope you live to tell me about it."_

_The shock came like a blow to the face and the heart and Alexis stumbled backward. "What?" She was momentarily silent as she watched Sam cry. "I'm. . . I'm alive. And I'm trying to tell you. Can't you just listen to me?"_

_Sam obviously couldn't and Alexis felt rejected as Sam stepped backward and said sadly, "Goodbye, Alexis."_

_Her heart constricted as if something was squeezing it. Alexis? Why not Mom? Why not Mother? Why did her own daughter behave around her like a stranger. She had searched her Sam for nights and nights and Sam couldn't even appreciate that?_

_Sam started to walk away._

"_Wait!" Alexis shouted and ran after her but Sam only seemed to get farther. "Wait!"_

_She didn't want to be stuck in darkness. She didn't want to be stuck in that forest. She didn't want to. . . _

_The wind stilled and the tree branches parted around her, allowing for sunlight to filter through._

_Sunlight!_

_Sunlight!_

_In was daytime. This eternal night had ended._

_Alexis wanted to weep for joy but as she fell to her knees, she saw the path. She walked it._

_The path was pretty straight and didn't curve or twist. It didn't end and the darkness didn't come back. She started to run on that path, her legs strong and vibrant with energy. Her heart sang out in joy as she ran and ran and within the distance, she saw a house. Her house. _

_She ran inside the house and closed the door behind her with a bang. Her breathing labored, she leaned against the door to catch her breath. _

"_Molly, Kristina," she called out._

_No answer. _

_Alexis walked farther into the house and looked around. No sign of her girls. She went upstairs. "Molly, Kristina, Sam!"_

_No answer._

_While she was in the forest searching for Sam, did her two other daughters disappear? Were they in the forest now?_

_Fear overtook her and she felt her heart shatter as she raced downstairs and to the door. She needed to go back to the forest. She needed to search for them. _

_She tried to open the door but couldn't. It was stuck! But how? Only moments ago she walked into that house so easily. _

_The other door. Maybe the other door wasn't stuck? She ran around the house to the other door only to realize it didn't have a door knob. What? How can a door not have a door knob?_

_She couldn't give up! _

_Think!_

_The windows! _

_Yes, the windows. She ran to one window and saw the gates on the window. Gates? She wasn't running a prison, why would she put gates on her windows. She ran to another one, and another one, and another, until the realization struck her like a brick. She was trapped inside her own house._

_Outside, she heard the winds pick up again and the night came so suddenly. Clouds covered the sky and lightning flashed as thunder banged and rain dropped to their death from the sky. Alexis sank down on a sofa and cried in despair. All alone. . . She was all alone. . . All alone. . . _

---

Sam had time to compose herself and was calm enough to keep the tears out of her eyes through the entire ride to her apartment. Though she was still sad, she hid it deep inside herself and as she opened the door to her apartment and reached in to flip the light switch, she was about to invite Lucky over but stopped with her mouth open and simply stared.

"What the. . ." She stopped, speechless.

"I'm sorry. The Port Charles Police Department will take the whole blame for this mess," Lucky said as he walked around her and into the apartment, even though he hadn't been invited. "We were searching for clues as to your whereabouts."

"And what did Mr. Sofa tell you?" she asked as she walked in and picked up one of the cushions and put it on the long sofa.

Lucky grinned. "Nothing, but Mrs. Loveseat was much more cooperative."

Sam snickered. Emotionally, she wasn't in the mood to laugh, but she was surprised that Lucky was about to try to make her do that to brighten her mood up. She glanced at the loveseat which was turned upside-down. "Were you searching for something taped to the underside of the loveseat?"

"Yes, but there was nothing."

She simply gave him a dumb look. "Well duh, why would I hide something inside my own home?" She bent over the loveseat and tried to turn it right-side-up.

"Let me help you," Lucky said and came over to the loveseat. Together, they placed it where it was supposed to be. Then together, they placed all the cushions where they belonged too.

"I like this furniture," Lucky said as he admired the room.

"Thanks." Sam had moved into this pre-furnished apartment without ever having even seen it. She had the money and needed a good place to stay after leaving Jason. And even though while leaving him she was afraid of losing Sonny and Carly as friends, Carly was nice enough to give her a 50 percent discount on the place.

The furniture was nice, a light sage green with dark sage green decorative pillows that matched the large green plant which stood by the terrace door.

Sam walked into her bedroom to see what other damage the Police Department had done and was only mildly surprised to see the drawers taken out of her dresser and placed on the floor. She stepped over her socks, bras, and panties that were spilled on the floor. "Geez, I hope my underwear didn't give away my vacation spot," she said sarcastically.

Behind her, Lucky bend down and picked something up. "Nope, but they did indicate that you have a very exiting sex life."

Sam suddenly turned to face him and her cheeks grew red when she saw what he was holding. "That was a mistake."

He inspected the black fake leather thong. "Nice." He inspected the price tag which was still on it and whistled as he saw the price.

"Give those back," Sam said as she turned into a deeper shade of red. "My underwear is personal to me."

Lucky chuckled. "Your underwear became public property the instant you left town."

Sam crossed over to him and snatched the thong out of his hands. "You do know you're a married man with a baby on the way?"

Lucky only smiled at her in amassment.

That look in his eyes unnerved her. "What?" she asked impatiently.

"You're really uncomfortable with this, aren't you?"

Sam opened her closet door and glanced at the things that had fallen on the floor while the police were ransacking her place. She tossed the thong into her closet and closed the door. "Yes, I am. Just because I've had a few one night stands in my life doesn't mean I'm a whore who likes to flash my underwear around." She walked passed him and out of the bedroom.

"I'm sorry," Lucky said soberly. "Maybe it was a bit insensitive of me."

Sam only turned and looked at him.

"I just couldn't resist. I've never met anyone who has a leather thong before." And inside his mind, he wondered how can Jason mess up bad enough to let such a woman go. And he wondered why didn't Elizabeth ever wear that kind of stuff. While searching Sam's apartment the first time after she disappeared, he and all the other male cops were blown away by the Victoria Secret collections she had. At that moment during the search, Cruz even jokingly mentioned that his ex-wife only wore white cotton panties and that the relationship failed because they couldn't keep a fire burning between them. Not only did Lucky find out more about Cruz's life at that moment, but he realized that he and Liz always saw the last sparkle of the fire and he always had to light it up again. The fire in their relationship never lasted long.

Sam walked into her kitchen and was mildly surprised to find that it was all in order.

"A couple of the female cops searched your kitchen," Lucky explained without her having to ask.

She glanced at him. "I wish they would have searched my bedroom instead. Then at least I wouldn't have to clean the whole place."

Lucky didn't respond and just sat down.

"You want anything to drink?"

"Sure, what do you have?"

She opened her fridge but only found a few diet soda's and since she was sure that wouldn't appeal to him, she opened her wine cabinet and pulled a bottle of white vine.

Lucky glanced up at it and only nodded at her so Sam pulled out two wine glasses and filled them both.

"Thanks," Lucky said when she handed him his glass.

Sam sat down and a quick sadness overtook her. "A toast to my mother's health, may she get better."

Lucky nodded and in a serious tone said, "And to you being safe and sound. I'm glad you're okay."

Sam nodded and though she tried to be happy she just kept remembering her mother laying in a hospital bed, white as snow.

Seeing the sadness in her eyes, Lucky did his best to cheer her up. "And to all the women brazen enough to buy leather panties."

Sam blushed again but finally laughed. "I bought that thong when I moved out of Jason's life. After leaving him, I felt all alone and like I had no love in the world. So I went shopping and I heard two women talking about men and relationships. One of the women said that in order to be loved you have to love yourself. I realized that I never really loved myself. And that lady told her friend that in order to love yourself you have to splurge on yourself and not be afraid to get something you want even if you can't afford it, because people who love themselves don't deprive themselves. In the heat of the moment, I decided that I will learn to love myself and my first step was to buy the most expensive thing I could find in that store. That leather thong was it. And it was a dumb mistake."

"Interesting," Lucky said as he sipped his vine.

Sam sipped her vine and shook her head slowly. "I know, I was stupid to buy it." And too ashamed to return it. She took another small sip. "So is my leather thong the talk of the department?"

"Are you kidding? You're the coolest girl in town. Some of those cops even told their wives to buy some leather thongs. They ended up sleeping on the couch because of that."

Sam laughed softly.

Lucky sobered. "If it helps, I didn't spread any word about the leather thong and it' strictly only known in the department. No one else knows."

"Thank you."

He glanced away. "I just thought that underwear is a person's own prerogative, and that it's nobody's business to know about such a thing."

"Thanks," Sam said again and took a sip of her vine.

Lucky looked at his wristwatch. "I have to go, Liz will be worried about me." He stood and put his empty glass in the sink. "If you find anything missing, let me know and I'll check with the other cops. He came toward Sam and ran his hands up and down her arms as if warming her skin. "Get a good nights sleep," he said looking deeply into her eyes. "You look tired and tomorrow will be a big day for you. You're bank account was frozen so we could monitor any activity there. And your disappearance was very high profile so the reporters will probably be banging on your door by sunrise."

"Thanks for warning me, I need to prepare myself for the publicity."

He turned around and walked to the door. "Bye, Sam." He was gone.

A sharp imaginary pain overtook her heart as she watched the closed door for a moment. Liz was so lucky to have a man who loved her so much. Lucky actually left because Liz would be worried about him. Jason had never done that with her. There were so many times when Jason simply didn't come home at night without even calling her. Or there were times when he called to say that he's leaving town and will be back in a week. She remembered one of those instances more then others.

Sam was always a bad cook, burning anything she put in the oven. But once, she actually did it right and cooked something spectacular. Sure she used a cooking book, but she followed all the rules and did a wonderful job preparing a romantic dinner for her lover. But Jason didn't get to eat the dinner because he had called her and told her he was on his way to Miami and will be back in a week. She was devastated to the point she had lost her appetite. That night, she packed all the food away and hid the candles that she got for the dinner. She kept the food in the refrigerator for a couple of days eventually hoping she will get her appetite back and will try her own creation which looked magnificent. But by the time she felt up to eating it, it had lost it's appeal and she threw it out without even trying. That was the last time she did anything romantic for Jason, but he didn't notice that. Her efforts were wasted on him.

---

Jeon Gotorax pushed a chess piece aside and looked at his mistress who sat across from him. He liked this particular mistress because she was slightly smarter then the others. No, she wasn't smart in the sense that she could think for herself. Actually, a truly smart woman wouldn't be with him because of his abuse and his way of mistreating them, but she was smart because she actually knew how to play chess and poker. Two points for her on that one! She was also good in bed and didn't raise her prices like all his other mistresses had before he disposed of them.

She was also silent, and didn't talk to him except if it was absolutely necessary. But even then her broken English was hard to comprehend. She had escaped her native country of Russia because of the poverty. She had escaped because the Prague Mafia had killed her whole family and kidnaped her. Olana had escaped Russia into the United States so that she could get the CIA involved in taking down that Prague Mafia before they because a threat to the whole world. They were already selling impressive weapons to anyone with enough money to buy it. It was unfortunate for Olana that her English was terrible and her need for money and his for a babysitter and housekeeper lead her to him. She was a good nanny to his kid from his wife. And when he had his Russian assistant translate to her that he will be willing to pay her more money if she slept with him, it took her a whole month to decide. He finessed her, obviously, making her believe that he will help her and love her and that he's actually a good man. Eventually she agreed. And now she was too scared to back away.

There was a knock on his door and Gotorax said calmly, "Come in."

The door opened and a tall blonde man with grey eyes walked in with a file inside his hands. It was late in the night, actually early morning, and Ivan looked sleepy but excited. "I have news for you."

"I'm not in the mood to receive any news," Gotorax said with mild impatience as he watched Olana move her selected chess piece. They were now even in the game, he was impressed.

"It's about Miss McCall."

That got his attention as he quickly looked at Ivan and then glanced back at Olana. Dark haired deep eyed gipsy like Olana. She was beautiful. The complete opposite of his short, blue eyed, blonde wife, who was also beautiful in her own way.

He glanced back at Ivan. "Tell her she's dismissed."

Ivan said something to Olana in Russian and the woman stood to leave. She said something to Ivan who then turned to Gotorax. "She wants to know if you will be joining her tonight."

He thought it over for a moment. "No, I think I will sleep with my wife tonight."

Ivan said something to Olana in Russian.

Gotorax wanted to pat himself on the back for being smooth enough to have his wife and his mistress living in the same house without them going after each other's throats.

Once Olana left, Gotorax moved the chess game to another side of the table and indicated for Ivan to sit. "What have you got?

Ivan put the file on the table between them and pushed it toward his boss. "These come from the camera I have installed in Miss McCall's apartment." The camera was motion activated and only took photographs every 30 seconds until there was no motion in the room for 2 minutes. He had asked Ivan to install the camera only in McCall's livingroom and bedroom and he was excited to know that finally some activity might have happened.

He opened the file and looked at what was a photograph of the livingroom and he looked at the woman who stood, with her mouth hanging open, by the front door. Her hair was full and wavy and black, her body short and petite. Her body looked like that of his wife's, but her beauty was as exotic as Olana's. There was a man behind Miss McCall and Gotorax had to admit he was handsome. The man was tall and strong looking, the all American good boy next door type.

"She came back," Ivan said while Gotorax flipped through the photographs.

"Do you know where she was?"

"No."

"Find out."

"Yes, sir."

Gotorax stopped at another photo. In that one, the handsome man was holding something black and Miss McCall was blushing red. "What is that thing he's holding."

Ivan smiled sheepishly. "Look at the next photo, it's specially enlarged just for you."

Gotorax looked at the enlargement. "A shiny leather thong." He laughed. "Miss McCall sounds like an exciting girl. Why did Mr. Morgan ever let her go?"

"He still cares about her."

"Are you sure?"

Ivan cleared his throat. "Yes, I did as you said. I killed a woman who looked like Miss McCall, removed her identification card from her, and called in to the authorities claiming to be a carpenter in the area."

"And did Mr. Morgan go to identify her?"

"Just like you thought," Ivan said. "He looked distraught as he walked into the building. And when he walked out he looked relieved. He talked on his cell phone before going in and after coming out. I couldn't intercept the call."

Gotorax looked through the remaining stack of the photographs as he pondered a thought. How can those mobsters fall in love? Were they really that weak? No, Jason Morgan wasn't. He had personally hurt Gotorax once to the extent that he still couldn't walk and needed the assistance of a wheelchair. Gotorax had sworn to do two things before he died. Kill Sonny Corrinthos and take over his territory, that was a business mission. And destroy Jason Morgan and everyone he's ever loved, that was personal. He wondered just how easy it would be to kidnap Miss McCall. When she left Jason and started a life of her own, Gotorax was almost disappointed that he couldn't use her for his mission, but he was encouraged to know that Morgan still cared about her. Besides, Morgan would try to save her even if he didn't love her. But the lingering love made the deal so much sweeter. He wanted to destroy Morgan mentally, emotionally, and physically, and what better way to do that then using Miss McCall? The only thing now was to find out the identity of her gentleman friend, he might present a problem.


	4. Chapter 3: Move in, Move out

**Chapter 3**

Alone in her own place, Sam gazed long and hard into her penthouse apartment and wondered where to start. She decided on the bedroom. All of the contents of all of her drawers were scattered over her floor and she tried to organize it best she could. She started out by throwing all of her underwear into the dirty laundry hamper. There was no way in hell was she going to wear something that had been ransacked by probably ten sets of police officer hands and then trashed onto the floor. After that, she stripped the bed off it's sheets and put a fresh new set on. In minutes, her room felt cleaner and held the fresh aroma of the lavender vanilla laundry detergent that she used. Then she straightened up the living room, the bathroom, and moved on down to the kitchen.

The kitchen was pretty much clean except for some minimal cleaning. She hadn't left much food in her refrigerator before going away on her little vacation. She only left a few cans of diet pop, and there was only one egg left in the egg case. In the pantry, she had a few unopened cans of corn, sweet peas, and a bag of salad croutons. So with those being her options for dinner, and she felt her stomach gave a roar of hunger, Sam decided to call a 24 hour pizza place and placed an order for a small cheese pizza.

She picked up the two glasses from the table and remembered her conversation with Lucky. Once again she felt that strange sense of jealousy for Elizabeth for having such a wonderful man. She washed those glasses, while her thoughts wondered to Lucky and Liz's marriage. Now that was a life. They weren't flowing in money the way all of the boyfriends she ever had. They had a normal life. A kid and another on the way, a great relationship, and respect for each other. It was mutual respect that kept relationships together. Jason never had any respect for her or her feelings. Sure he gave her nice things and treated her well, but on the same hand, he treated her like she were a client and he was trying to sell her something. That treatment was too sweet and obviously artificial. She could tell that Lucky treated his wife differently all of because he cared enough to go back home to her. If the roles were reversed and that had been Jason driving her home, after leaving her he wouldn't have gone home to his woman, he would have gone through half the town and only then came back home.

She snapped out of her thoughts and turned off the water, dried her hands, and decided to take a quick, hot shower before the pizza arrived.

Sam walked back into her bedroom and opened her closet door to pull out a nightgown when she noticed the mess in there. Oh God, why this? Why did the cops have to make a mess of everything so she would have to clean everything up?

She had no choice, but to clean it up. She straightened up all of her clothes on the hangers and put all the stuff from the floor into her laundry hamper. Then she straightened up all of the things on the shelves. While cleaning, she stumbled across that leather thong of hers.

She remembered the gleam in Lucky's eyes when he saw that lovely garment . Sam was sure that sweet little Elizabeth wouldn't be caught dead wearing something as sexy and taboo as that. No, Liz came off as a prude. Which was kind of good considering that Jason wasn't much different. Out of those almost three years that she shared Jason's bed, they only had sex maybe 10 or 20 times and out of all of those time she had faked it except only once or twice. He was a prude that didn't last long. He would only do in one position, the classic missionary one, and he'd only go at it for maybe five minutes before he came. All of those times Jason would fall asleep and Sam would go off to take a shower and fantasize of a man who actually knew what he was doing in bed. But even despite all that, she had never been tempted to cheat on him. He obviously cheated on her though, and got the other woman pregnant. Well, she wasn't overly sure if Jason was really Elizabeth's baby's father, but her gut kept telling her of that liaison. There was something inside her that kept telling her it wasn't Lucky's child. She had no proof of it, but deep down, she didn't need any.

There was a knock on the door and Sam pulled herself out of her thoughts. Realizing she had the thong in her hands, she quickly put in into her purse as she pulled out a twenty dollar bill to cover the pizza bill, and then she walked to open the door.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, completely taken by surprise by the person who stood on the other side of the door. It wasn't the pizza boy.

"Welcome back, Sam," Jason said as he walked into her penthouse without her even inviting him.

--

Elizabeth was already asleep when Lucky walked in through the door. He checked on her and found her to be snoring softly while stretched out almost across the whole bed. He checked on Cameron, Liz's son with another man, and he was sleeping too, with his favorite teddy bear in his arms.

Liz's first pregnancy was a result of a one night stand with her best friend's husband. Sometimes, Lucky felt like a total screw-up whenever he remembered what he had done, by cheating on Liz and getting addicted on drugs. But then he would look at Cameron and realize that he was conceived in sin and he would be glad that at least his cheating hadn't resulted in a pregnancy.

Lucky bent down and kissed Cameron on the forehead and covered the little dark blue blanket tighter around his little body. "Love you, Son." Though the boy wasn't his own, Lucky adopted him and considered him as his own.

"Love you too, Daddy," Cameron whispered in his sleep.

Even though Lucky wasn't a mushy man, at that moment he was happy like a clam to have a child call him Daddy. And he was downright excited about having his own biological child soon. Lucky couldn't wait to hold his new born son in his arms, play fetch with him when he got older, or teach him how to drive one day. It was one thing for him to raise someone else's child as his own, but it was a whole other thing to actually have his own.

Lucky walked out of Cameron's room and walked down to the living room where he watched tv for a couple of hours. He thought about Sam while watching TV, about how glad he was to have his friend back. He had genuinely been worried about her and it felt like a huge weight had been taken off his shoulders the instant he saw her smiling face. He missed Sam. Truth be told, he wouldn't be where he was in that moment if it hadn't been for Sam. If Sam hadn't helped him, Liz would already have filed for divorce and he would still be addicted to drugs. Sam really helped him.

Jason was an idiot to let that woman go, Lucky realized. With Jason's dangerous lifestyle, not every woman would be able to handle living with him. Sam was strong, she could easily survive the danger. For an instant, Lucky imagined Liz living in a dangerous mess. He couldn't see her surviving a day, much less a lifetime. No, Liz would probably try to change Jason, turn him into a good old boy. Or he could see Liz making him choose between his whole life and what he's used to, and her.

Lucky didn't even know why he was thinking about Liz and Jason since it was beyond impossible, they were too different and incompatible.

The show he was watching went to commercial and it was a late night phone sex add. A lady with a short, black leather dress came on the screen and purred into the screen at how much she would enjoy to tease a caller and get paid for it. Now that was a rip off, to just talk to someone about your sexual fantasies and have to pay them for it too, while you have a wife who doesn't satisfy you anymore.

When Lucky and Elizabeth first got together, he found the sex to be romantic. But after a while it was the same old, same old. She didn't like lingerie and preferred her granny panties and flannel pajamas. She didn't like the lights on or karma sutra books. Usually, she didn't do anything but just lay there, frozen still like a cold fish, not even uttering a sound. Sometimes, he would wonder if she was even awake.

Now he imagined having Sam in bed. With her leather thong and sinful eyes, lovely lips. He was sure she wouldn't mind trying a new position or two. He was sure she wouldn't mind making a sound or two while in bed, maybe turning the lights on and seeing her partner completely naked.

Just the thought of Sam made Lucky blush and he hated himself for even thinking of another woman while his wife was sleeping in another room. It was that commercial that got him started. It was that commercial that made him want to spend that night with a capable woman. It wasn't Sam. It couldn't be Sam. He wasn't attracted to Sam. Or was he?

Lucky turned the TV off and decided to go to bed. He changed for sleep and crawled into his warm bed and wrapped his arms around his lovely wife. "I love you, Honey," he whispered while he kissed her shoulder.

"I love you, Jason."

Lucky felt chills run down his spine.

--

"What are you doing here?" Sam asked while Jason looked around her place, as if inspecting it's safety.

"I don't like you living here."

She crossed her arms while still leaving the door open for him to leave. "Too bad, I like it here."

"Where were you?" He stared right at her with his cold blue eyes.

"Jason," she said and scratched her head in annoyance, "I'm a free woman. I can go wherever I feel like."

He relaxed a bit. "I was just worried about you. You didn't leave a note or anything. I thought maybe you were kidnaped because of your connection to me."

"I only went on a short vacation," she said while sitting on the arm rest of a love seat. "Next time I leave, I'll leave you a note." There was sarcasm in her voice.

"We couldn't find a single trace of you."

"I know," she said simply and shrugged. "I didn't want to be found."

Jason sunk down into a couch. "I still don't like you living here, it's not safe."

"And how is that?"

He didn't answer.

"I guess it's safe then," she said.

"Move back in with me," Jason requested.

"Why should I?"

"It's safer."

She looked him straight in the eyes. "Cut the bullshit, Jason. Why should I?"

He surrendered. "Because I hate living alone and without you."

Sam was almost heartbroken to hear that. She hated hearing him say it now, now that she was over him.

"I still love you," he said.

She could almost feel tears in her eyes as she realized Jason will never be out of her life. "I'm sorry," she said as she walked to the open door and held it, clearly indicating that she wanted him to leave.

"Please reconsider."

"I can't. I want to start my own life and I can't do that if I'm with you."

"I'll call you tomorrow and see if you changed your mind," he said while he walked out the door.

She waited a second and then closed the door. To herself, she said; "I won't change my mind."

--

Lucky practically jumped out of bed after hearing Liz's sleepy proclamation of love for another man. He had never suspected it, never even considered it as possible. Liz and Jason? How insane!

His head spun with possibilities and as a cop, he started to investigate. Lucky went through Liz's purse for maybe the first time in his whole life and pulled out her cell phone.

So it was true. She had received one call from Jason the previous night and the call lasted for less then five minutes. It came in at around seven in the evening. At that time, Liz had told him it was the hospital and she had to rush out and fill in for a nurse that called in sick. He never suspected it of being a lie. Now that he thought about it, though, he realized that she was dressed way too nicely for work that night.

She had also called Jason three times this vary day. The first call lasted around eleven minutes. The second one only twenty seconds. And the third one, that followed only a few minutes after the second one, was thirty minutes long.

He checked the missed calls and found a missed call from Jason about twenty minutes before her second call to him.

Then Lucky checked her text messages only to find a bunch of "I love you" ones between the forbidden couple.

He listened to the voicemail, one that hadn't been deleted. "It's not Sam they found, just looks like her. When she comes back though, I'll try to talk her into moving back in with me. If she finds out about our baby, she might tell Lucky and ruin your marriage. I think it would be better for her to live with me, it would be safer for you if no one suspects us of meeting up in secret. Call me back when you get this."

Lucky was outraged to hear that. He threw the phone and it bounced off the wall and fell onto the floor. He didn't mean to wake her, but Liz sat up in bed suddenly.

"Are you okay, Lucky?"

He stared at her. Just stared.

"Come on, Lucky, you're scaring me."

"How long has this been going on?" he asked, outraged.

"What are you talking ab. . ."

"Don't lie to me," he said while banging his hand on the dresser. "You whispered his name in your sleep and I went through your phone."

"You went through my stuff," she sounded betrayed. Poor little Elizabeth, thought Lucky, betrayed by her lack of privacy. What about the way she betrayed her husband? He wondered.

"How long has it been going on?" he asked again.

She started to cry. "Not long."

Now Lucky felt on the verge of a breakdown. How can she? He loved her. He gave her everything she asked for. How can she sneak around and find another man to love? Wasn't he good enough for her? Especially the man she replaced him with, he was nothing more then a heartless killer.

"It started when you were addicted to drugs and sleeping with Maxi," she said, "you were the one who started ending this relationship."

He sat down on the bed. "I was practically insane," he reasoned. "Couldn't you have been understanding and supportive towards me rather then run to the arms of another man?"

"Jason's a good guy," she whispered dreamily.

"He's a killer."

Liz didn't respond to that one.

"Lucky." By now, Liz had crawled out of bed and put her robe on. "I'm sorry. I didn't think it was going to go this far."

Now he was enraged again, and the only reason why he kept his voice down, was because Cameron was in the other room, and he didn't want to traumatize the boy.

"You got pregnant. When were you planning on telling me that he's not my son?"

She didn't answer.

"Never?"

"I guess eventually it would have come out."

He gave her a murderous look. "Great, you were waiting for someone else to tell me, just so you wouldn't have to yourself."

"I'm sorry," she cried.

"I want a divorce," Lucky said, matter of factly.

Now she sat down on the bed next to him. "Be reasonable, Lucky. I made a mistake, and so did you. You cheated on me too. And you used drugs."

"And somehow it's all my fault, huh?" he asked sarcastically. "Yes, it's all my fault that I was in pain and the medicine messed with my mind, made me into a crazed addict and an underage bimbo downright forced me to have sex with her in exchange for pills. If I wanted to, I could file rape charges against her. I was going through a hard time." He paused, and took a deep breath. "You on the other hand, got scared and didn't want to help me through it, you ran and fucked the only guy who would open the doors to you that night."

Tears popped out of her eyes but she didn't say anything.

"I want you to move out."

"What?" now she rose again, shock registering on her face.

"You heard me?"

"Why do I have to move out, I'm the one with the children. You can move out."

"It's my house," Lucky said. "It was my mother's way before you moved in here. So I think you should move out."

"Tomorrow, I will," she said sadly.

"Tonight."

"But where will I go?"

"I bet Jason might still have an extra room."

She only nodded. "I'll find someplace." She got up and started walking through the house. "I'll come back and pick up all my stuff tomorrow."

"Where are you going? The front door is that way." He pointed to the stairs that she had walked passed.

"I'm going to get Cameron."

"No."

"But he's my son," she said angrily.

Lucky stopped her. " He's going to be distraught over all this as it is. Don't wake him up and drag him out of here screaming, causing more damage then need be."

She nodded. "And what if he wakes up in the morning and is crying for his mother." Rage filled her voice. "What will you tell him? That you are a stupid prick and kicked his mother out into the night?"

He felt like the worlds biggest scum after hearing her say that. He almost changed his mind about kicking her out during the night, and the only reason why he stuck to his guns was because she hadn't put as much of a fight as he had expected. Honestly, he expected her to argue her ass off into being allowed to stay the night, but her lack of fighting gave him every indication as to the place where she really wanted to go. And him kicking her out gave her every possible reason to spend the night in the arms of her beloved Jason. "Then I'll tell him you'll be back soon and both of you will be going on a little adventure."

"Okay," she said in surrender and walked downstairs and out the front door.

"And Liz," Lucky said, causing her to turn around to face him, "I don't want Cameron living with Jason. It's too dangerous."

Liz didn't say anything. He knew she wasn't going to, she didn't trust Jason herself.


End file.
